Are your most important things hard or soft?
If you are following this journey at home, I hope that I’ve at least gotten you to think about the things you would like to do differently.
If you haven’t thought about it yet, it’s a simple question that you can ponder at any time throughout your day. “Is there anything that I could do differently that would make me feel better?”
You could eat different, play more, go outside, or give yourself more time to read.
If you’ve already decided to act on something, you may be realizing just how hard this process can be. The reason why so many people participate in the “slow descent” to an “inactive commonplace” is because actually thinking and acting different than you already do is difficult.
My biggest challenge has been time management. I've gotten the same feedback from others, including this great thought from my mom:
I’m finding that weaving these wispy filaments into an endeavor of strength and purpose is harder than I thought. I have the energy and enthusiasm but not the time management, so I’ve learned that I need to stick to a schedule. First things first. Start with the hardest and work your way down. Set a timer and work through your list. These are the things I am learning. I wish I could say that I learned it. Having this ritual is helping me stay honest with my work. I’m also figuring out that I spread myself too thin and then nothing gets done. To get traction and momentum it takes consistent and committed effort every day.
I am having a similar experience.
This is why a schedule is so important and why this schedule must include time for all of the things that are valuable to you.
Here's what I'm realizing though. A schedule is not enough. The schedule needs to be used correctly.
Bert and I had an excellent discussion about scheduling that I believe holds a key insight about how I can improve moving forward.
He introduced a concept to me about “hard” and “soft” times on the schedule.
A hard time is a time that can’t be violated. Let’s say you have an important meeting in Pittsburgh at 10:30. That start time is hard. If you aren’t at the agreed location by 10:30, you are late, and there are consequences.
That event also places another “hard” time on your schedule, which is the time you have to leave your previous location in order to be on time.
Activities that involve other people are usually hard. Not always, but usually.
The harder we treat the time, the more likely it seems to be that we make it. If the plane leaves at 5, we'll be there.
A soft event is one where the time is fluid.
Our to do lists are often soft. These are lists of things we want to get done at some point, but it doesn’t really matter when we do them.
We’ll squeeze them in between other events, stop on the way home, etc…
This is where I think I am struggling.
I’m putting too many big, important things on my schedule as soft events.
I tell myself that I am going to work on X, Y, and Z today. I don’t say when, I just say that these are the things that I want to focus on. I start X, but X takes longer than I anticipated. Before I know it, I’m well into the afternoon and running into hard events. I didn’t leave time to clean up, so I end up leaving things laying around where I last used them. I go take care of some hard events, and then because I feel bad that Y and Z didn’t get attention I decide to “at least get started” on one of them.
Before I know it, I’m working late and frustrated. Day after day this goes on, and day after day the same things are sacrificed. I didn’t make time to play with my kids as much as I wanted, I didn’t make as much time as I wanted to sit down and talk to my wife.
Here’s where this gets even more dangerous - Parkinson’s Law. Parkinson’s Law states that work expands to fill the time allotted for its completion. If this is true (and in my experience, there is at least some truth to this concept), what does that mean if we don’t put any restrictions on the amount of time a task is given?
Is it any wonder that we’re left feeling like we’re spread too thin?
Today I am going to be mindful of these things. I am going to start giving myself more hard times.
I am especially going to focus on giving more “hard” times to non-work things. For whatever reason, I am conditioned to do much more hard scheduling of work related items while leaving non-work to wait until I have the time.
No more!
I am also going to be mindful of giving myself hard end times.
By scheduling when I will be done with something, my hope is that two things will occur. I will get more things done by not letting them bloat, and I will also finally make progress on organization by purposefully leaving time to put things back where they belong.
These are some initial thoughts that I wanted to share.
Thank you Bert!
Here's to the hard times ahead!
And now, I have a hard coffee date with my wife.
Life is good!